Can Airlines Cancel IFR

luvflyin

luvflyin

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Luvflyin
I ask because I was on Southwest flying into Santa Barbara SBA. Plane was over an hour late. Tower/Approach was closed. So we had to hold for awhile waiting for another plane to land and cancel. It was CAVU. Do FAR’s ever allow 121 operations to cancel and proceed VFR? If so, what about the companies? Many years ago United would do it flying into SBA.
 
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Used to work Piedmont into HXD and they canceled when they could. Uncontrolled back then as well. I wanna say they had to be within 10 miles to cancel though.
 
Depends on the airline and what their Op Specs allow, but yes, that’s something that can be legal to do. Approval to do so will have conditions attached to it, for instance:
  • The flightcrew is in direct communication with an air/ground communication facility or agent of the certificate holder that provides airport traffic advisories and information that is pertinent to conditions on and around the landing surface during the terminal phase of flight
  • The flight is operated within 10 NM of the destination airport, or visual reference with the landing surface is established and can be maintained throughout the approach and landing.
  • The certificate holder must identify obstacles and use airport obstacle data which ensures that the performance requirements of part 121 subpart I are met.
  • The weather conditions must allow the flightcrew sufficient visibility to identify and avoid obstacles, safely maneuver using external visual references, and maintain minimum altitudes.
 
When I was in Part 135, our Ops Specs did not allow it. Under IFR clearance wheels up to wheels down. I have seen others that did cancel in flight, not sure if their specs were different, or they just bent the rules.
 
Pretty sure I’ve done it both at American Eagle and Delta.
 
This would be specified in the certificate holder's OpSpecs. Ours permit cancelling in the air if certain conditions are met.
 
We do it at AA, but as others have mentioned, there are a lot of restrictions.
 
I wouldn't sweat it. Remarks state: "APCH/DEP SVC PRVDD BY Los Angeles ARTCC WHEN SBA APCH CLSD."
 
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Yes under certain circumstances at Delta. At endeavor, we’d fly to all the islands in the Bahamas and depart and arrive VFR. We’d get dumped by Miami and cancel around 4000ft. On departure, we’d climb to 17,500ft and pick up with Miami. Down low, the radio reception was kind of crappy.
 
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We flew VFR from Vientiane, Laos to Siem Reap, Cambodia at about 5,000 AGL on Lao Aviation in 2004 or so on an ATR-42.
 
In the small airlines I flew for in Alaska, we flew VFR, IFR and PVFR...
 
Zeldman said:
In the small airlines I flew for in Alaska, we flew VFR, IFR and PVFR...
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Well whadda ya know, it’s a thang…Pretend VFR…
“…This is, after all, the essence of visual flight. After my experience in Kotzebue, I began to refer to this sort of weather condition as PVFR, which stands for pretend visual flight rules. I define PVFR as: A situation where the meteorological conditions meet the definition of VFR, but conditions are such that there are too few visual references within the range of the prevailing visibility to keep the airplane upright by reference to a visual horizon and to safely navigate. In other words, the pilot is actually in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). To simplify the definition a bit: PVFR prevails when one is in VFR weather conditions, but can't see anything except the weather…”
 
Maxnr said:
I wouldn't sweat it. Remarks state: "APCH/DEP SVC PRVDD BY Los Angeles ARTCC WHEN SBA APCH CLSD."
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Yeah, it’s nothing to sweat. Kinda time consuming though. We had to do a couple turns in holding waiting for someone else to cancel. Sounds like the Radar coverage there is no better than it was years ago when I worked there.
 
luvflyin said:
I define PVFR as: A situation where the meteorological conditions meet the definition of VFR, but conditions are such that there are too few visual references within the range of the prevailing visibility to keep the airplane upright by reference to a visual horizon and to safely navigate. In other words, the pilot is actually in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). To simplify the definition a bit: PVFR prevails when one is in VFR weather conditions, but can't see anything except the weather…”
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To simplify even more, the weather below IFR minimums, so we just pretend it is VFR and go anyway...:lol::lol:
 
luvflyin said:
Yeah, it’s nothing to sweat. Kinda time consuming though. We had to do a couple turns in holding waiting for someone else to cancel. Sounds like the Radar coverage there is no better than it was years ago when I worked there.
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Yeah. You, me and a couple thousand other guys. Thats what you get when you want to be a pilot.
 
Maxnr said:
Yeah. You, me and a couple thousand other guys. Thats what you get when you want to be a pilot.
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This ain’t about me the pilot. I was a passenger and I was late and I wanted to get the eff on the ground and go home:incazzato:
 
At UPS, no.
Can takeoff VFR if we can not get a clearance on the ground but there are several restrictions.
 
I don't remember the carriers, but I've heard a couple of the majors do it coming into Albany. I think it was just to facilitate an easier landing setup, with VFR under a pretty high ceiling. Albany is class C, but usually not all that busy. I figured it was just routine at some towered fields.
 
Albany Tom said:
I don't remember the carriers, but I've heard a couple of the majors do it coming into Albany. I think it was just to facilitate an easier landing setup, with VFR under a pretty high ceiling. Albany is class C, but usually not all that busy. I figured it was just routine at some towered fields.
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I doubt they would do it at Albany, as that is a 24 hour tower airport.

We can do it, but there are many restrictions. We cannot depart Vegas, cancel, then fly at 17.5 to Phoenix. It’s not meant for enroute. More so just landing at an uncontrolled airport.
 
And I may have the terminology wrecked. It's along the lines of the tower reading back "cleared visual approach runway 1". So does that mean they're on an IFR flight plan, were flying IFR, and then broke out and executed a visual approach but are still on that IFR flight plan? My apologies for not understanding that part of the system.
 
Albany Tom said:
And I may have the terminology wrecked. It's along the lines of the tower reading back "cleared visual approach runway 1". So does that mean they're on an IFR flight plan, were flying IFR, and then broke out and executed a visual approach but are still on that IFR flight plan? My apologies for not understanding that part of the system.
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A Visual Approach is an IFR Clearance.
 
luvflyin said:
A Visual Approach is an IFR Clearance.
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I think this is the source of one of the most common misperceptions about IFR among VFR pilots. I know I used to hear visual approach clearances all the time at John Wayne (KSNA), and didn't realize that was still part of an IFR clearance until I was an IR student.
 
Mxfarm said:
so did the pilots :D or maybe it was less… only 3700’ to work with.
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There may have been some different skid marks in the cockpit and the odor was not that of burning rubber ... :rofl:
 
Larry in TN said:
No. Nothing about night time.

It's OpSpecs C077. You can probably find the C077 template online.
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Found it. Thx. I doubt if the flight I was on could have met this requirement:
“…The flightcrew is in direct communication with an air/ground communication facility or agent of the certificate holder that provides airport traffic advisories…”
 
At my shop, opspec says same thing as it sounds like others, w/n 10 miles, yada yada. Not same as visual approach, obviously, which is common. We also used to have pure VFR routes, though that is no longer.
 
35 AoA said:
At my shop, opspec says same thing as it sounds like others, w/n 10 miles, yada yada. Not same as visual approach, obviously, which is common. We also used to have pure VFR routes, though that is no longer.
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How long ago were those VFR routes? How far apart were the Airports?
 
luvflyin said:
Found it. Thx. I doubt if the flight I was on could have met this requirement:
“…The flightcrew is in direct communication with an air/ground communication facility or agent of the certificate holder that provides airport traffic advisories…”
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That would often have been the on-field FSS station or company operations. The on-field FSS are gone and airlines no longer have trained weather observers and people in ops who can do traffic advisories (like a Unicom).
 
Larry in TN said:
That would often have been the on-field FSS station or company operations. The on-field FSS are gone and airlines no longer have trained weather observers and people in ops who can do traffic advisories (like a Unicom).
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Yup. FWIW someone there is a weather observer. It reverts to E Surface Area when the C closes. Not G. My guess would be one of the airlines employees, but I dunno. Could be a City employee
 
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